Foreign Thank you for joining Wars of the Roses and this is new light on unknown years by Ernest e Barr an article taken from rosicrucian digest volume 45 number 6 June 1967. new light on unknown years by Ernest e Barth the essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls the meeting of the scenes is dramatized
In the amorc film well of faith the four evangelists who have recorded the life and teachings of Jesus for us leave very little information on the early development and education of Christ the scripture story starts with the birth of Jesus in a stable at Bethlehem it skips from there to 12
Years later when Jesus is found lecturing to the Learned doctors in the temple and after that nothing whatsoever is said of his activities until he embarks on his teaching Mission as a mature adult but where was Jesus during all these unrecorded years where did he receive his formal education to such
Questions the scriptures Supply at best vague Clues but some new information recently recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls promises to furnish us with a few interesting answers Josephus the noted Hebrew historian who lived during the First Century A.D tells us that during his own lifetime there existed three major Jewish sects the Pharisees
The Sadducees and the essenes the Pharisees were the most numerous the Sadducees the most powerful and the essenes the most devout this is the way that Max Diamond sums it up in Jews God and history the Pharisees were the Learned law-oriented traditionalists of the time it was with
Them that Jesus so often clashed in the tales recorded in the gospels politically they represented the middle of the road and their religious beliefs included the teachings that man possessed an immortal Soul which lived on after his body had died during his formative years Jesus would certainly have received at least some
Instruction under the Pharisees at the temple and there is evidence that he was greatly influenced by at least one of them if indeed he was not his disciple Hillel the Elder perhaps the most renowned of the Pharisee prophets died around the year 10 A.D and a comment on
His teachings in the Jewish purka Boss shows us how closely he and Jesus concurred how much worldly wisdom is embodied in his wonderful stroke of Genius to transform the positive but utopian dictum love thy neighbor as you would thyself into the negative but realizable do not unto others what is distasteful to you
In the teachings of Hillel this was the whole law and so it was also in the teachings of Jesus the god of the Jews was essentially a monotheistic concept the god of the Christians in contrast to this was a Triune God a god which consisted of Father Son and Holy Ghost
All blended into an indivisible one the Sadducees the Sadducees in contrast to the Pharisees were the extreme right-wingers politically politics and not religion was their principal interest they did not believe in immortality or resurrection and they denied a Hereafter according to demon the third sect which complemented this Trio of first century
Judaism was the essenes and Pliny Philo and Josephus have written much on the manners and customs of the essenes this sect represented the extreme left wing of Judaism and its members lived together in close communities it is this sect on which the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls shed light
And it was this sect with which Jesus most likely had some close affiliation the parallels between the teachings of the essenes and the teachings of Jesus as given in the gospels are too close and too numerous to be explained away as coincidence information contained in the newly discovered manuscripts appears to
Document this idea and shed some light on why the essenes are not mentioned in the New Testament the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered in caves situated in Hills along the east shore of the Dead Sea at a place called qumran one half mile from there archaeologists
Have excavated an old building buried in the sand which is known as the kerbet kumran ruins this edifice appears to have once served as a monastery for some first century religious sect if indeed it was not their Central headquarters sacred manuscripts Professor IL sukunik the head of the Department of archeology
At the Hebrew University puts forth an interesting Theory to explain the presence of the Scrolls in the caves the old manuscripts of a synagogue are considered sacred and must not be destroyed and they are therefore stored in a special room for that purpose known as a geniza
Speculates that the cave served as a janizer for the synagogue of the monastery among the documents found in the caves near the ruins were many copies of classical books of the Bible but there were also many other Scrolls hitherto unknown to biblical Scholars one of the most important of these is
The manual of discipline for the sect to which the Scrolls belonged this document agrees in essence with information given to us about the essenes by Josephus Philo and Pliny but it also goes far beyond that and sheds interesting light on many former Mysteries sons of zadok the owners of these Scrolls never refer
To themselves as essines but prefer to call themselves the sons of zadok says one fragment of a scroll when David had forgotten the law it was rediscovered by zadok Scholars feel that this was the same zadok who anointed Solomon in the Bible Josephus relates that the essenes were
Extremely Adept in the art of healing and many historians have long believed that the Greek word essayoi concealed a common Semitic word meaning physician Dr H Spencer Lewis in his book on the mystical life of Jesus expresses the same idea and he goes on to state that
The essenes were a local Lodge or branch of the great white Brotherhood a mystical fraternity which dates back to Eamonn hotep IV and perhaps even thought most three of Egypt in Greece Lewis tells us their members were referred to as therapeutic both the great white Brotherhood that Lewis tells of and the
Secret sect referred to in the Scrolls War as a part of their Garb a white linen tunic and it is for this and other reasons that they and the essenes were assumed to be one it’s interesting to note that Dr Lewis’s book was written in 1929 long before the Dead Sea Scrolls
Were even heard of and yet much of what he tells of is backed up by the information in these documents through his rosicrucian order Lewis claimed to have access to the essene records and other secret archives which have been preserved by the various Mystery Schools
The Dead Sea find would seem to back up this claim baptismal washing was a central Cornerstone common to both the Christians and the essenes and Iman suggests that John the Baptist who baptized Jesus was probably an essene since he preached and baptized in the vicinity where the essenes had their
Largest and most influential community and Monastery this custom was also a ritual of the sect which wrote the Scrolls a second teaching which the Christians and the essenes had in common was their unwillingness to swear Oaths there are many other points of concurrence between the teachings of the essenes and the
Teachings of Christ thank you for watching and please don’t forget to share like subscribe and comment and if you can please consider donating to Wars of the Roses links to PayPal and patreon are in the description thank you so very much
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